Cousin Bette

HONORÉ DE BALZAC TRANSLATED BY KATHARINE PRESCOTT WORMELEY COUSIN BETTE ROBERTS BROTHERS 3 SOMERSET STREET BOSTON 1888 COPYRIGHT, 1888, BY ROBERTS BROTHERS. University Press JOHN WILSON AND SON, CAMBRIDGE. COUSIN BETTE. CHAPTER I. WHERE DOES NOT PASSION LURK? ABOUT the middle of July, 1838, one of those hackney carriages lately put into circulation along the streets of Paris and called milords was making its way through the rue de l’Université, carrying a fat man of medium height, dressed in the uniform of a captain of the National Guard. Among Parisians, who are thought to be so witty and wise, we may find some who fancy they are infinitely more attractive in uniform than in their ordinary clothes, and who attribute so depraved a taste to the fair sex that they imagine women are favorably impressed by a bear-skin cap and a military equipment. The countenance of this captain, who belonged to the second legion, wore an air of satisfaction with himself which heightened the brilliancy of his ruddy complexion and his somewhat puffy cheeks. A halo of contentment, such as wealth acquired in business is apt to place around the head of a retired shopkeeper, made it easy to guess that he was one of the elect of Paris, an assis- tant-mayor of his arrondissement at the very least. As may be supposed, therefore, the ribbon of the Legion of honor was not absent from his portly breast, which protruded with all the swagger of a Prussian officer. Sitting proudly erect in a corner of the milord, this decorated being let his eyes rove among the pedestrians on the sidewalk, who, in fact, often come in for smiles which are really intended for beautiful absent faces. The milord drew up in that section of the street which lies between the rue de Bellechasse and the rue de Bourgogne, before the door of a large house lately built on part of the courtyard of an old mansion with a garden. The old building had been allowed to remain, and it stood in its primitive condition at the farther end of the courtyard, now reduced in space by half its width. Judging by the way the captain accepted the assistance of the coachman in getting out of the vehicle, an observer would have recognized a man over fifty years of age. There are certain physical actions whose undisguised heaviness has the indiscretion of a certificate of baptism. The captain drew a yellow glove on his right hand, and, without making any inquiry at the porter’s lodge, walked towards the portico of the house with an air that plainly said, “She is mine!” The Parisian porter has a knowledgeable eye; he never stops a man wearing the ribbon of the Legion, dressed in blue, and ponderous of step; he knows the signs of riches far too well. The ground-floor apartment was occupied by Monsieur le Baron Hulot d’Ervy, paymaster under the republic, formerly commissary-general of the army, and at the present time head of the most important department in the ministry of war, State councilor, grand officer of the Legion of honor, etc. This Baron Hulot had lately taken the name of d’Ervy, the place of his birth, to distinguish him from his brother, the celebrated General Hulot, colonel of the grenadiers of the Imperial Guard, whom the Emperor created Comte de Forzheim after the campaign of 1809. The elder brother, the count, taking charge of his younger brother, placed him with fatherly prudence in an office at the ministry of war, where, thanks to their double service, the younger, Baron Hulot, obtained and deserved the favor of the Emperor. In 1807 he was made commissary-general of the armies of Spain. After ringing the bell, the bourgeois captain made desperate efforts to pull his coat into place; for that garment was as much wrinkled before as behind, under the displacing action of a pear- shaped stomach. Admitted as soon as a servant in livery had caught sight of him, this important and imposing personage followed the footman, who announced as he opened the door of a salon:— “Monsieur Crevel!” Hearing the name—admirably adapted to the appearance of the man who bore it—a tall, blond woman, very well preserved, seemed to undergo an electric shock and rose immediate. “Hortense, my angel, go into the garden with your cousin Bette,” she said hurriedly to a young lady who was sitting by her, busy with some embroidery. Bowing graciously to the captain, Mademoiselle Hortense Hulot disappeared through a glass door, taking with her a lean old maid who seemed older than the baroness, though she was in fact five years younger. “It must be something about your marriage,” whispered Bette to Hortense, without seeming at all offended by the manner in which Madame Hulot had sent them away, evidently considering her as of no account. The apparel of this cousin might at a pinch explain the want of ceremony. The old maid wore a merino dress the color of dried raisins, of a peculiar cut made with pipings which dated from the Restoration, a worked collar worth perhaps three francs, a straw bonnet of sewn braid trimmed with blue satin ribbon edged with straw, such as can be seen on the old-clothes women in the markets. A glance at her shoes, whose make betrayed a dealer of the lowest order, would have led a stranger to hesitate before bowing to cousin Bette as a member of the family; in fact, her appearance was that of a dressmaker employed by the day. Nevertheless, the old maid made a friendly little bow to Monsieur Crevel before she left the room, to which that personage replied by a sign full of meaning. “You will come to-morrow, will you not?” he said. “Are you sure there will be no Company?” asked Bette. “My children and yourself, that will be all,” replied the visitor. “Very good, then you may rely on seeing me,” she said as she left the room. “Madame, I am here, at your orders,” said the militia captain, again bowing to the baroness and casting upon her a glance such as Tartuffe bestows on Elmire when some provincial actor thinks it necessary to explain the part to a Poitiers or Grenoble audience. “If you will follow me, monsieur, we shall be more at our ease in discussing matters here than in the salon,” said Madame Hulot, leading the way to an adjoining parlor which in the present arrangement of the house was used as a cardroom. This room was separated by a slight partition from a boudoir which had a window opening on the garden, and Madame Hulot left Monsieur Crevel alone for a few moments, thinking it wise to shut the window and the door of the boudoir lest any one should attempt to overhear them. She also took the precaution to shut the glass door of the large salon, smiling as she did so at her daughter and cousin who were settling themselves in an old kiosk at the further end of the garden. On returning she was careful to leave the door of the cardroom open, so that she might hear the opening of the salon door in case any one entered that room. As she went and came on these errands the baroness, conscious that she was under no eye for the moment, allowed her face to tell her thoughts; and any one who had seen her then would have felt something akin to terror at the agitation she betrayed. But as she came through the door between the salon and the cardroom she veiled her face with that impenetrable reserve which all women, even the most candid, seem able to call up at will. During the time occupied by these preparations, which were, to say the least, singular, the militia captain looked about him at the furniture of the room in which he sat. As he noticed the silk curtains, formerly red, now faded into purple by the action of the sun, and worn along the edges of each fold; the carpet from which the colors had vanished; the defaced furniture with its tarnished gilding and silk coverings stained and spotted and worn into strips, expressions of contempt, self-satisfaction, and assurance succeeded each other artlessly on the flat features of the parvenu merchant. He looked at himself in the mirror over the top of an old Empire clock, and was engaged in taking stock of his own person when the rustle of a silk dress announced the return of the baroness; he at once recovered position. After seating herself on a little sofa, which must have been very handsome as far back as 1809, the baroness pointed to a chair, the arms of which ended in heads of sphinxes lacquered in bronze— the surface of which had peeled off in several places leaving the wood bare—and made a sign to Crevel to be seated. “The precautions which you are taking, madam, are naturally a delightful augury to a—“ “—lover,” she said, interrupting him. “The word is feeble,” he replied, placing his right hand upon his heart, and rolling his eyes in a manner which would have made any woman laugh if she had seen their expression with a mind at ease. “Lover! lover! say, rather, one bewitched!” CHAPTER II. SHAMEFUL DISCLOSURES. “Listen to me, Monsieur Crevel,” said the baroness, too serious to laugh; “you are fifty years old—ten years younger than Monsieur Hulot, I admit; but the follies of a woman of my age must find their justification in youth, beauty, celebrity, personal merit, or some one of those distinctions which dazzle her so much as to make her forget everything, even her own age.

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